Ubuntu Manpage: Tcl_GetIndexFromObj, Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct

Provided by: tcl9.0-doc_9.0.2+dfsg-1_all

NAME

       Tcl_GetIndexFromObj, Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct - lookup string in table of keywords

SYNOPSIS

       #include <tcl.h>

       int
       Tcl_GetIndexFromObj(interp, objPtr, tablePtr, msg, flags,
       indexPtr)

       int
       Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct(interp, objPtr, structTablePtr, offset,
                                 msg, flags, indexPtr)

ARGUMENTS

       Tcl_Interp *interp (in)                  Interpreter to use for error reporting; if NULL, then no message
                                                is provided on errors.

       Tcl_Obj *objPtr (in/out)                 The  string  value  of  this  value  is  used  to search through
                                                tablePtr.  If the TCL_INDEX_TEMP_TABLE flag  is  not  specified,
                                                the internal representation is modified to hold the index of the
                                                matching table entry.

       const char *const *tablePtr (in)         An  array  of  null-terminated strings.  The end of the array is
                                                marked  by  a  NULL  string  pointer.   Note  that,  unless  the
                                                TCL_INDEX_TEMP_TABLE   flag  is  specified,  references  to  the
                                                tablePtr may be  retained  in  the  internal  representation  of
                                                objPtr,  so  this  should represent the address of a statically-
                                                allocated array.

       const void *structTablePtr (in)          An array of arbitrary type, typically  some  struct  type.   The
                                                first  member of the structure must be a null-terminated string.
                                                The size of the structure is given by offset.  Note that, unless
                                                the TCL_INDEX_TEMP_TABLE flag is specified,  references  to  the
                                                structTablePtr may be retained in the internal representation of
                                                objPtr,  so  this  should represent the address of a statically-
                                                allocated array of structures.

       int offset (in)                          The offset to add to structTablePtr to get to  the  next  entry.
                                                The end of the array is marked by a NULL string pointer.

       const char *msg (in)                     Null-terminated  string describing what is being looked up, such
                                                as option.  This string is included in error messages.

       int flags (in)                           OR-ed combination of bits providing additional  information  for
                                                operation.   The  only  bits  that  are  currently  defined  are
                                                TCL_EXACT , TCL_INDEX_TEMP_TABLE, and TCL_NULL_OK.

       enum|char|short|int|long *indexPtr (out) If not (int *)NULL, the index of the  string  in  tablePtr  that
                                                matches  the  value of objPtr is returned here. The variable can
                                                be any integer type, signed or unsigned, char,  short,  long  or
                                                long long. It can also be an enum.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION

These procedures provide an efficient way for looking up keywords, switch names, option names, and
similar things where the literal value of a Tcl value must be chosen from a predefined set.
Tcl_GetIndexFromObj compares objPtr against each of the strings in tablePtr to find a match. A match
occurs if objPtr's string value is identical to one of the strings in tablePtr, or if it is a non-empty
unique abbreviation for exactly one of the strings in tablePtr and the TCL_EXACT flag was not specified;
in either case TCL_OK is returned. If indexPtr is not NULL the index of the matching entry is stored at
*indexPtr.

If there is no matching entry, TCL_ERROR is returned and an error message is left in interp's result if
interp is not NULL. Msg is included in the error message to indicate what was being looked up. For
example, if msg is option the error message will have a form like “bad option "firt": must be first,
second, or third”.

If the TCL_INDEX_TEMP_TABLE was not specified, when Tcl_GetIndexFromObj completes successfully it
modifies the internal representation of objPtr to hold the address of the table and the index of the
matching entry. If Tcl_GetIndexFromObj is invoked again with the same objPtr and tablePtr arguments
(e.g. during a reinvocation of a Tcl command), it returns the matching index immediately without having
to redo the lookup operation. Note that Tcl_GetIndexFromObj assumes that the entries in tablePtr are
static: they must not change between invocations. This caching mechanism can be disallowed by specifying
the TCL_INDEX_TEMP_TABLE flag. If the TCL_NULL_OK flag was specified, objPtr is allowed to be NULL or
the empty string. The resulting index is -1. Otherwise, if the value of objPtr is the empty string,
Tcl_GetIndexFromObj will treat it as a non-matching value and return TCL_ERROR.

Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct works just like Tcl_GetIndexFromObj, except that instead of treating tablePtr
as an array of string pointers, it treats it as a pointer to the first string in a series of strings that
have offset bytes between them (i.e. that there is a pointer to the first array of characters at
tablePtr, a pointer to the second array of characters at tablePtr+offset bytes, etc.) This is
particularly useful when processing things like Tk_ConfigurationSpec, whose string keys are in the same
place in each of several array elements.

REFERENCE COUNT MANAGEMENT

       Tcl_GetIndexFromObj  and  Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct  do  not  modify  the reference count of their objPtr
       arguments; they only read. Note however that these functions may set the interpreter result; if  that  is
       the only place that is holding a reference to the object, it will be deleted.

KEYWORDS